Czech Republic and Slovakia
This weekend is "houby days" Czech village. You know how some cities have "China town", well, we have Czech Village. Houby means mushroom (specifically morel mushroom), so it is a street festival that celebrates the mushroom. I've seen a little bit of it over the years. My lace guild often has some people demonstrating bobbin lace somewhere in the festival. I've demonstrated there before. One of the big selling points to get volunteers is when we can find a place to demonstrate indoors. This weekend was a perfect example. The day starts off cold and rainy, then the clouds clear and it gets hot and humid, then thunder storms pop up in the afternoon/evening. I'll happily hide indoors on days like this.
Thanks to the local Czech and Slovak museum and library (a Smithsonian affiliate per their website), I have seen examples traditional dress and culture. Unfortunately, a lot of the traditional outfits were destroyed by a massive flood 11 years ago. They did keep a few pieces that they had pictures of before the flood to show how the vegetable dyes washed out and the fibers broke down. The museum was a beautiful, round brick building with either 6 or 8 roof peaks radiating from the center of the building (I can't find pictures of the old museum online). It also sat right by the river, so when we had the big flood, the peaks of the roof were the only part of the museum above water. Now the museum is much bigger. They dried the building out and gutted it. It was jacked up and placed on top of a parking garage that was built across the street. They also added on to the building. Massively. Yay for them, especially since they tend to have better art exhibits than the art museum. Try not to think about that too hard. Thanks to them, I know that Andy Warhol (Slovak) and Alfons Mucha (Moravian by birth - now the Czech Republic) have Czech/Slovak roots even if they did not stay there. According to some of my reading, the Czechs and Slovaks were lumped together into one country after WW I. Around the time of WW II, there was a vote to split Slovakia from the Czech half of their name, but the war ultimately thwarted the effort. When I checked the current exhibitions at the local museum, one of them is about the velvet revolution in 1989. That led the way to the splitting of Czechoslovakia into the Czech republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993. Somehow I feel like I would learn much more about the velvet revolution by going to the museum than reading the internet, but that's just how my brain works.
Slovakia is described as having mountainous terrain with a more continental climate. The length of growing seasons tend to depend on elevation. Slightly over half of the population lives in urban areas, and rural populations are described as living in small communities of "up to several hundred inhabitants". Slovak is their official language (though it is closely related to the Czech language).
The Czech Republic's landscape is dominated by a large plateau surrounded by mountains. While it is currently landlocked, it has not always been landlocked through its history. 3/4 of their population lives in urban areas.
In my research on YouTube, I found a novel way of brewing tea attributed to the Czech Republic (I didn't find anything about Slovakian tea). Yes, I'm going to try funnel brewing.
Gotta love the white on almost white pictures. Now you could go to the store, and buy funnel coffee filters, or you can fold your own. Considering my coffee maker (a house warming gift from my mom's boyfriend so he could have coffee when visiting) takes the regular filters, I'm using what I have.
This is really just as easy as fold the round filter into quarters. It was a perfect fit for my funnel.
As a brewing method, I wasn't impressed. The hot water was not in contact with the tea long enough. Maybe I should have layered several filters to slow it down a bit? I'm not sure that it would have helped. They showed brewing black tea, then adding sweetened condensed milk and sugar. I'll take mine plain thanks. I'm also glad I didn't buy any cone filters, because I don't think I will use this brewing method going forward.
Thanks to the local Czech and Slovak museum and library (a Smithsonian affiliate per their website), I have seen examples traditional dress and culture. Unfortunately, a lot of the traditional outfits were destroyed by a massive flood 11 years ago. They did keep a few pieces that they had pictures of before the flood to show how the vegetable dyes washed out and the fibers broke down. The museum was a beautiful, round brick building with either 6 or 8 roof peaks radiating from the center of the building (I can't find pictures of the old museum online). It also sat right by the river, so when we had the big flood, the peaks of the roof were the only part of the museum above water. Now the museum is much bigger. They dried the building out and gutted it. It was jacked up and placed on top of a parking garage that was built across the street. They also added on to the building. Massively. Yay for them, especially since they tend to have better art exhibits than the art museum. Try not to think about that too hard. Thanks to them, I know that Andy Warhol (Slovak) and Alfons Mucha (Moravian by birth - now the Czech Republic) have Czech/Slovak roots even if they did not stay there. According to some of my reading, the Czechs and Slovaks were lumped together into one country after WW I. Around the time of WW II, there was a vote to split Slovakia from the Czech half of their name, but the war ultimately thwarted the effort. When I checked the current exhibitions at the local museum, one of them is about the velvet revolution in 1989. That led the way to the splitting of Czechoslovakia into the Czech republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993. Somehow I feel like I would learn much more about the velvet revolution by going to the museum than reading the internet, but that's just how my brain works.
Slovakia is described as having mountainous terrain with a more continental climate. The length of growing seasons tend to depend on elevation. Slightly over half of the population lives in urban areas, and rural populations are described as living in small communities of "up to several hundred inhabitants". Slovak is their official language (though it is closely related to the Czech language).
The Czech Republic's landscape is dominated by a large plateau surrounded by mountains. While it is currently landlocked, it has not always been landlocked through its history. 3/4 of their population lives in urban areas.
In my research on YouTube, I found a novel way of brewing tea attributed to the Czech Republic (I didn't find anything about Slovakian tea). Yes, I'm going to try funnel brewing.
Gotta love the white on almost white pictures. Now you could go to the store, and buy funnel coffee filters, or you can fold your own. Considering my coffee maker (a house warming gift from my mom's boyfriend so he could have coffee when visiting) takes the regular filters, I'm using what I have.
This is really just as easy as fold the round filter into quarters. It was a perfect fit for my funnel.
As a brewing method, I wasn't impressed. The hot water was not in contact with the tea long enough. Maybe I should have layered several filters to slow it down a bit? I'm not sure that it would have helped. They showed brewing black tea, then adding sweetened condensed milk and sugar. I'll take mine plain thanks. I'm also glad I didn't buy any cone filters, because I don't think I will use this brewing method going forward.
That does look like more trouble than it's worth.
ReplyDeleteIt was. Thankfully I didn't have to buy anything to do this, so I know that I don't have to do it again.
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